


waves crash, ships don't

by relliot



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Adorable Baby Yoda (The Mandalorian TV), Angst, F/M, Past Relationship(s), Secrets, Suspense, mercenaries in a war
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-02
Updated: 2020-02-01
Packaged: 2021-02-28 04:33:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,474
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22517797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/relliot/pseuds/relliot
Summary: The last thing he wanted was to go back to you after everything he had done.It had been years and you had stayed mad and well, he thought he deserved it.But now he had no choice.And you had a blaster with your finger not far from the trigger.
Relationships: The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV)/You
Kudos: 18





	1. Chapter 1

It wasn’t the storm that woke you.

Despite the fervent velocity it poured down around you with, the cracks of lightning and thunder, it still wasn’t enough to wake you, not on its own. No, it was like this throughout the duration of the wet season, you had grown used to falling asleep to the constant barrage of hot tropical rain against the roof, the thundering crashes of the waves on the shore just out the window. It was normal.

It was the sudden cut of a razor crest’s engines. A sound you hadn’t heard in so many cycles, you figured at first you were just going crazy.

But even your own tortured mind wouldn’t do that to yourself.

Pulling from bed, grabbing whatever scraps of clothing laid about, the weather kept the house plenty warm, you didn’t need much. Just a loose sweater over your nightwear and the blaster you kept by the nightstand.

All the windows were covered over to keep the inside dry from the storm, but you didn’t need to be able to see him to know that it was him, not with the all too familiar clank of his beskar. It was subtle. Soft compared to the storm but a thousand times more distinct to your ears.

But something caught your ear as you moved for the door, not just beskar-plated footsteps, but two other sets as well, hushed whispers fading away into a murmur as another roar of thunder echoed from above.

It wasn’t enough for him to come on his own? He brought others?

Your finger itched for the trigger, but you kept it down, pinned to your side as you waited for the steps to slow to a stop, landing them right on the other side of the thin wood of the door which separated you. The faint tone of his breath coming out through the modulator, clearly still trying to catch up from the hike.

He didn’t bother knocking. He knew he didn’t need to.

Opening the door, your suspicions were easily confirmed. Another man and woman stood there, blasters ready to be raised at the first sign of danger, both of them scoping the blaster in your hand and tensing on sight. But neither made much more of a move than that, not without him moving first.

The beskar was shining with the next echoing crack of lightening, drenched wet as they all seemed to be, but brighter and cleaner than the last time he had come around. Looked like business was good.

Well, it couldn’t be that good, he was here, wasn’t he?

And he really wasn’t going to say anything? You could kill him. Right there and then, you really did consider it.

Instead, you just stepped back into the house and left the door open for them to follow, you certainly weren’t going to give him the satisfaction.

There were whispers exchanged between the three of them, but after a few seconds of hushed debate, they followed. He was careful to shut the door behind them and stayed hovering there as the other two stepped in and set their bags down. Even a bag that seemed to move and coo.

You couldn’t care less about whatever cargo he carried. You couldn’t care less about him.

“I know it’s late…” His voice sounded strained, even through the helmet.

You scoffed, trying to busy yourself by picking up some of the discarded mess around the large open room, centered around the dying pit of smoldering embers. He moved from the door, he moved closer, but you only moved around him.

“You’re about two years late.”

You didn’t care to spot the look the other two shared, you caught some motion out of the corner of your eye, but they barely even registered on your radar at the moment. He wouldn’t bring a threat to you. If he trusted them, then you didn’t even need to think about them.

He tried again to get closer, to stand between you and your work, now being tossing fresh wood into the pit, getting the smoke pluming again. “If I could-”

“Be out by sunrise, or I’m going to kill you.” With a shove, you pushed the last piece of wood into his chest and sent him stumbling back a step.

He quirked his helmet as if to protest, but any real argument died before it made its way out of his straining throat. He held the wood, refusing to let go, thinking if he held on that you would too, but you only pulled away, grabbed the discarded blaster and retreated to the room in the corner.

“What did you do to the poor girl?” Cara raised the question only once it seemed she was out of earshot, back wherever she came from. “Forget to call or-”

“I broke a promise.” He muttered, tossing the wood into the fire.

It sparked big, igniting the small flame into a plume of fire and smoke.

“A promise to do what? Love her forever or-” One look, even through the helmet, was enough to shut that line of questioning down the instant it left her mouth.

But Karga wasn’t as burdened by the fear of his look, “She’s quite the looker.”

“Keep your thoughts to yourself.” He warned, earning a brief show of surrender in response. “We need a plan to get out of here.”

“You really think she’ll shoot us if we’re not gone by sunrise?” Cara tried her hand again, watching as he clanked over to the sofa next to her and sigh out as he lowered himself down, still worn from their last battle. “You could use a few nights rest.”

“I’m fine.” Just the sigh which escaped him seemed to argue otherwise. “And yeah… she’ll shoot me.”

“Must have been one hell of a promise,” Cara said and looked away before he could tell her to keep her mouth shut, her attention refocusing on the bag at her feet that moved every few seconds.

“It was.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The battle had left him with more scars than not.

He watched you. The whole morning. Since the second you woke up, until now, the moment he had to push his repacked bags towards the doorway, the light of the sunrise just beginning to peek over the coastline out the window.

The storm didn’t stop, if anything, its intensity grew in the night.

But he watched you and you seemed less than phased by the constant clattering of water against the roof.

You were deliberate in every motion.

Careful with the knife in your hand and precise when you raised and lowered it repeatedly over the board of fruits. Some he knew, others he had never seen. Not an ounce of juice spilled from the board, even if it squirted from each of the fruits as you sliced, you had a hand on a towel before you could make even a drop of a mess.

It was careful. Precise. Perfect. Everything he remembered you to be in such a different way. It was somehow the domestic equivalent of what he was used to with you and he couldn’t pull his gaze away.

And he knew he was staring. He knew you knew he was as well. You could feel his gaze from a parsec away, confined to the small living space, you were nearly suffocated by it. But he didn’t care.

He wanted to stay just to tell you that.

But besides the board where you surgically diced the fruits of various colors, sat your blaster, loaded and the safety off. Each second he spent staring, the sun got closer and closer to the horizon, blazing the sky he could see from the window in a warm orange out of the darkness of the night.

Each second was a second closer to you asking him to leave with a shot to the beskar just to make your point. Or given how quiet you had been, maybe just the shot without warning.

It wouldn’t surprise him. He wouldn’t even argue he didn’t deserve it. There was an uncomfortable tightness in his chest just imagining it.

Cara hit him on the arm, not rough, just a nudge, a reminder of the sun’s position in the sky, as if he hadn’t been counting down until the exact second, ensuring to spend each moment he had to spare in the same room as you.

“You could ask her if we could stay?” She whispered carefully, chucking her chin up and back towards the kitchen. To you.

Another cut on the board, each piece the exact size as the one before.

“I don’t think she’ll shoot you; you know…” Karga felt the need to chime in from where he dipped in for shelter from the rain, coming into the conversation from behind them. “If you apologize-”

He couldn’t even entertain the thought any longer. It was torture to even envision a path where you accepted any attempt at saying he was sorry, where he could stay with you for just a second longer. He had tried before; he knew the odds of this time being any different.

The helmet shook in a resounding ‘no,’ “No. We’ll head into town, get what we need, and keep moving.” His voice strained through the pain in his heart.

One last look, it was all he would give himself. He almost hoped you would spare him one glance back, maybe if you did, he could survive another two years. But your knife hit the board again, stare never varying from the board in front of you.

“Mando, whatever you did-” Cara tried, her brows furrowing just slightly in towards each other. It was a genuine concern, he believed it. But she didn’t know.

“I shouldn’t have brought us here.” He defended quickly, just loud enough to be overheard. Stars, he wished you were listening. “Let’s go-”

He moved to take a step out the door, to shut the door behind him and end it all now that the sun was just about to fully rise over the horizon, but he didn’t move more than an inch in his beskar. Not as his chest went tight.

A tightness he thought was because he was looking at you, like a tear in his heart. But this was a real tightness, a real sharp pain as he moved.

The broken ribs he had been nursing since their last fight were nothing new, but this pain was sharp, not chronic. It was like being stabbed, no, he knew all too well what that felt like this. This was worse. This was so much worse.

For a brief second, he considered that you had shot him. But he would have heard you move for the blaster; he would have heard the shot. Even if it wasn’t you, if it had been anyone from any direction, he would know.

This was from within him, his own body screaming as a pain latched onto every single cell and echoed through his chest.

He could do nothing but fall to his knees at first, Cara reached out to keep him upright but severely underestimated how much a man in full beskar weighed the second he became dead weight. He was on the floor before he knew it, the clambering of his armor against itself enough to cause a ruckus on its own, but now it was combined with Cara’s frantic calls for help.

And the only thing flashing through his mind was guilt. Guilt for suddenly becoming even more of a problem for you. Another burden for you.

He grunted and groaned, doing his best to move into a position where it didn’t hurt but after a few struggling squirms on the floor, he became painfully aware that didn’t exist. Something was very wrong. The broken ribs he had been ignoring for the past day or two since the fight, just trying to get them to safety, all of the injuries from that day, it was all catching up to him, burning a hole through his chest by the feel of it.

Then all he could see was you. The small slit of his vision through his helmet was focused entirely on you. He knew it wasn’t a hallucination, you looked much too stoic for that, he imagined that if he was dreaming, you would at least feign concern, for his ego.

No. Not you with your steady hands and streamline thought.

“You’ve got to get him level with the floor.” He had fallen, collapsed in onto himself into a twist. Cara did as instructed and got him flat on his back with a few heaving tosses of him in his heavy armor. “What happened to him?”

Everything was beginning to blur, nothing but your voice echoing in his head with the pain now. But he could see Karga and Cara share a brief look from where they both knelt next to him.

“There was a fight.” Karga stuttered out, waving his hand. It wasn’t necessarily a lie, but it was nowhere near helpful.

“He took a pretty bad blow to the back of the head.” Cara followed up as best as she could.

But your hand wasn’t anywhere near his helmet, you knew better than to even try. You trailed down his chest, hands dipping beneath the armor wherever it could, finding a few places to stop and hold, letting it move up and down with each of his shuddering breaths. Uneven and scarce.

“It’s not his head.” You commented under your breath, releasing it almost as a scoff as you pulled away, getting back to your feet right at the edge of his blurring vision.

The light behind you played you for something heavenly, the sun fully up above the horizon now, dousing the room with cascades of bright light and the rain echoing against the roof to a steady rhythm now. Much steadier than his labored and almost nonexistent breath sounds.

“Get him up, move him onto the table here.”

He couldn’t see you anymore once you gave your instruction and dipped out of vision, but he could hear the clatter of everything that had been on the small fireside table as it hit the ground. Cara had him by the shoulders and Karga got him by the legs, trying to keep him level as best they could until his back his something solid and the heat of the fire began to overwhelm him, now cooking in his armor.

Your face was back. Just the vague outline of it as he felt himself teetering on the edge of consciousness. Your fingers pressed just underneath the helmet, grabbing a pulse on his neck but not daring to venture any further up.

“I’m taking your chest plate off.” It wasn’t a question, not that he would have been able to answer if it had been, but you let it fall from your lips more as a courtesy than anything else.

He reached out for your other hand, the one by your side, trying with a near numb and deft hand to give it a squeeze, but everything went black.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You and Mando.   
> It was a sea of questions and could Cara and Karga really be blamed for wanting answers.

“So, what do you think it was?”

You had long since sewed him back up and covered the wound, now laying exhausted next to him, Cara couldn’t help her confusion. Both she and Karga stood in the kitchen, snacking on the delicately cut pieces of fruit you hadn’t necessarily cut for them, but you offered it, after the fourth hour of them hovering over your shoulder watching you work.

Karga only shrugged in response to the question, reaching into her bowl to steal a slice of the blue fruit his selection was curiously missing. “He took quite a few shots back in the fight-”

“No- not that.” She shook her head, still attempting to keep her whisper down, “I mean the two of them, what do you think the promise was?”

He chuckled a solid hearty chuckle that radiated from his chest. He couldn’t help the booming voice that followed him everywhere even if they tried not to wake you.

“I think Mando specifically asked us not to think about it.”

She blew out from her lips, reaching back into his bowl and grabbing a perfectly cubed orange fruit. “You think it was romance?”

“He doesn’t take his helmet off.” Karga reminded but she just shook her head.

A cube of fruit still stuffed in her cheek mid-chew, “He has no problem with the ladies, trust me.”

“You?”

He couldn’t even help the laughter that burst through him as her eyes went wide, she couldn’t get a negative response out fast enough. Shaking her head and crossing her hand in front of her neck at the same time.

“No- nope- no-”

“Then who?”

“This mom, back where we met, in a little village who bought him for protection.” She finally calmed back down, still shaking her head slightly trying to rid herself of the mental image.

“But he left her too?” Karga was all in now, he couldn’t help it, watching on from the kitchen.

You were slumped uncomfortably against the table you had instructed him to be left on, his chest plate discarded next to you with a pile of blood-soiled clothes used as you cut him open and stitched him back up. It was all hand-done out here, no bacta sprays to heal him up in seconds, you had to do it yourself.

They imagined it was a combination of the exhaustive efforts just to keep him breathing and the fact that there was no way you got any sleep once they arrived last night, but you were exhausted.

“Is that what you think happened here?” Cara questioned, still scanning over the scene, waiting for some clue to jump out, but the two of you were so stoic.

Even in stitching him back up after he collapsed in your doorway, you didn’t crack from your mysterious façade. It was incredible. You managed what he did even without the helmet. Level-headed didn’t even begin to cover it.

And she wanted to know more. She wanted to know why Mando actually believed you would shoot him if they lingered around for a second past sunrise, but the sun had long since set on the rapidly passing day on this planet, and not only did you feed them, but you stitched him back up.

You refused to leave his side just hours after threatening to end his life if he bought up more time than you allotted.

She was confused and she wanted to know what the promise was. She wanted to understand.

“I think that he made and broke an important promise like he said.” Karga supplied, setting the empty bowl back down and moving to lick his sticky fingers.

“But do you think it was love?” She kept pressing.

“I’ve only ever seen a woman get so mad for love and money.” He shrugged, “And since I know his stream of finances and she lives here, it’s either love or we’ve got it all wrong.”

It wasn’t that it was a shanty house. It was certainly holding up against the endless storm, give or take a few windows shaking when the lightning struck close enough. But it wasn’t some luxury estate on the shore of a sunny planet meant for relaxation and nothing else.

By the looks of it, the nap you were currently stealing next to Mando’s slowly rising and falling chest was the closest you had come to relaxation in a long time.

There were no mementos about, no keepsakes, nothing. There was a couch around the fire pit, a table there that Mando now slept away on, a few candles and books tossed aside to make room for him. There was a kitchen, no abundance of food, everything looking as if it had been picked or fished within a five-minute walking radius of the house. There was the small bedroom in the corner, Cara had run in under your orders to grab a few fresh clothes, it was just one bed on the floor, a few more unlit candles and books, a refresher and not much else.

It wasn’t a home, it seemed to be a temporary shelter. Except you had said two years. And everything about the efficient scheduling and care you placed in making sure everything was exactly where you wanted it… It didn’t feel temporary, it just didn’t feel like a home.

“You think he’ll ever tell us?” She pressed once more, fishing around in her bowl but not caring for any of the remaining pieces.

“Assuming he wakes up and she doesn’t kill him?” He countered and she nodded, only making him chuckle out again. “No.”

She couldn’t help but laugh and shrug along. He raised a good point. Mando wasn’t one for talking, and something this personal? Definitely not one for talking.

“Alright, I’m going to feed the kid, see if he’s got any cool hand magic for me,” Cara suggested, gesturing forward with the bowl in her hand.

Karga pursed his lips out and quirked his head. “Yeah, I’ll watch.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He wakes up and you're left to figure it all out.

The heat on his chest was oddly warm.

No beskar to keep it away, to keep his natural warmth within, nothing. Just his bare skin open to the fire blazing beside him.

His hands snapped up despite the pain to feel for his helmet, still on around his head, not having even been shifted. Not that he really feared you would try anything, but he couldn’t help the concern which overtook him in the brief moment when he realized he had passed out.

Unconscious, he was in control of nothing. And that was a pretty big fear of his.

You stirred awake as soon as you felt him move, and by the time he lifted his head enough to see you, you could tell that even through the helmet, you both wore the same look of surprise in realizing you had fallen asleep beside him.

He dragged his gloved hands over his bare chest, finally able to feel his heart beating again with a steady beat, all the way to the small stitches tied in his side. It hurt, but it was better now than it had been before. It was a pain he could manage.

How could he not, he was used to it by now.

The pain shifted to sharp and scalding the second he tried to sit up.

You reached a somewhat deft hand to his chest and gently urged him back down, “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

Your voice was a raspy mix of having just woken up and complete and utter exhaustion even despite it. Hair slightly astray, bags under your eyes, hardly the constant version of you that you strived so hard to keep. A rock sank in his stomach knowing it was him who disrupted it all.

So much for being out by sunrise.

“Do you remember collapsing?” You shifted around, onto your knees next to him, keeping your hand pressed to his chest to gauge the steady beat, careful around the wound, checking to see the rise and fall.

Your touch was soft. Methodical in its placement and even in his current condition, he couldn’t miss the callouses that lined your palm and fingers. But it was soft to him. And he wanted more, though he knew he didn’t deserve it.

“Yes.” His voice was something to rival your own, but he realized it immediately as it shot from his lips in a curt graveling tone. He recoiled, he cleared what he could, the modulator spitting it back out in a much more average tone for him, “Yes,” as he repeated.

“Was the pain in your lungs?”

“I thought I had broken a rib…” He mused, trying to steal a look down at his own chest, a pretty gnarly bruise stretching across the entirety of it, emanating from his right side with a line of stitches straight through it. “After the fight… I just ignored it.”

“You punctured your lung, must have been the rib.” You nodded as you spoke, eventually tugging your hand away and bringing back the cloth, which was previously covering him up, replacing your warm touch with it. He wished you lingered for just a second longer, his body yearning for the warmth of your touch over that the fire was providing.

A burst of lightning struck down just outside the house, reverberating back into the room with an echoing rumble of thunder. You didn’t even flinch in acknowledgment of it, you simply waited for the sound to die down and continued. “I stitched it back as best I could, but, you could use some real medical attention.”

He nodded curtly, as much as he could without any pain manifesting, it seemed his whole body ached.

“Do you want me to leave?”

You froze where you knelt, holding your own hands together in front of you, mindlessly pulling over them, but as soon as the words left his mouth, your pull against your own skin got tighter and tighter.

He didn’t know what that meant. He didn’t know how to read that.

He knew you, or at least he thought he did, but this was new, a new tick he was going to have to learn. Or not. If he didn’t stick around much longer, what difference would it make?

“Listen-“

“I’m not going to throw you out…” You finally mustered, but you refused to meet the stare of his helmet. You knew he was looking; you always knew. “Your two people have gone out for wood and supplies, mentioned your ship was broken, you can stay until it’s fixed.”

He didn’t nod. He just stared; you weren’t looking his way anyways.

“And they left your baby.” You scoffed, gesturing toward the sleeping bundle on the couch. “Which was, as far as surprises go…”

But the words trailed off on your tongue, something else catching in your throat, words you just couldn’t manage.

“I-”

“I think it would be better if we kept our interactions to a minimum.” You coughed out, getting to your feet and defensively snuggling your arms around your torso. “You should be fine for now, so…”

“Right.” His voice came out strained, he didn’t mean for it to but he couldn’t help it.

You glanced to him and he held the stare. But both of you looked away when the door opened back and his two drenched companions came back in, carrying soaking wood. It was impossible to keep anything dry in that storm.

“Oh, sorry, if we’re interrupting something-” Cara interjected, so hoping that she was interrupting something, you could hear the eagerness in her voice even as she tried to dampen her smile.

“You’re not.” You shot back before Mando could even find the words to do so. “One of you should keep an eye on him.”

He lifted his head with an attempt to protest one last time, but you were gone before he could manage it, moving to the door to grab the sheathed machete there, strap it to your hip and leave.

Cara and Karga shared a look but when Mando let his head fall back down with a groan, they moved over to him instead of lingering any longer.

Karga settled in on the couch next to him, reaching over to gently pat the head of the sleeping kid. “How are you feeling, Mando?”

“As far as near-death experiences go…” He shrugged as best he could, earning a brief chuckle from Karga. “The ship?”

“I can’t even get the engine on her back on, we’re going to be needing a lot of parts.”

He scoffed, because of course, it wouldn’t be as simple as flipping a switch and getting out of here. Reaching down to his chest, he ran his gloved fingers over again, the scoff having torn through him uncomfortably. Everything felt okay. For now, at least.

“I can take you to town tomorrow-”

“No.” Karga was curt. “You need to rest.”

“I’m fine-”

“You said that and then passed out.” He couldn’t argue with him there. “You rest. We’ll figure it all out.”

“I’m not very good at sitting still.” He huffed but Karga only chuckled, reaching forward to gently pat him on the shoulder now.

“Figure it out now or next time, you’ll wind up dead.”

He nodded, Karga had a point.

“And there won’t be any pretty women to patch you up.” Cara added, though she had been actively pretending she wasn’t paying attention.

He sighed. He could have done without the commentary.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With the extent of his injuries, he can't do much besides sit around.   
> And he's no good at that.   
> But he's good at watching you.

It was easy to be distracted by you.

Every motion was methodical and efficient, lulling him into a gentle rhythm as he watched you work.

As the sun began to rise to begin the next short day, you followed it into the house, stripping the machete at the door and heaving a bag of something heavy over your shoulder. Cara had jumped up to offer a hand, but you denied it, throwing it into the kitchen, remaining almost entirely silent.

In his own defense, the last thing he wanted was to curse you with his sole presence for the rest of the day, but he had to send Cara and Karga into town if he ever wanted the Razor Crest fixed. The first time you spoke that whole morning was to correct his directions into town. While he had the basics, you filled in that during the rainy season, there was a better path.

Armed with the directions, they left, taking the child with since the rain had moderately let up. And again, he was alone with you.

No matter how much it hurt him to see he was hurting you, he couldn’t help but watch you as you worked. It was easy to be distracted by you.

The heavy bag had been full of fish, several of the larger variety which lived in the ocean your house sat next to. He hadn’t spent enough time here to know them well, but he knew enough to recognize them.

You knew each and every aspect to them, or at least, from what he could see, it appeared you did.

Sat on the floor of the kitchen, you took a few bowls and baskets and began free-hand slicing down the spines, scraping away the scales and eventually ending up with perfect cuts of fish, each varying only in shape. He imagined if he were to weigh them on a scale, they’d measure the same.

It was a skill, your most marketable, you had an eye for precision.

It was just hard for him to watch you squander it in preparing a fish instead of the likes he knew you were capable of.

Since he landed the Razor Crest there, he had been hit with an overwhelming wave of memories, memories of you, playing by, one right after the other. But they were faint in the back of his head once you materialized in front of him. Real and threatening with a blaster at your side and no hesitations about using it.

Sitting here now, silence encapsulating the entirety of the house, even the rain slowing to a light pattering along the roof and window, with nothing but you to focus on, it all came back. Louder. Impossible to ignore.

The first time he saw you. The first time he spoke to you. The first time he realized how important you were going to be to him. The first time he realized how out of his depths he was around you. The first time you smiled and his heart melted.

The first time you smiled.

He hadn’t seen you smile since he arrived. He thought at first, that it was because he was there, and he whole-heartedly believed he deserved that. But now he was catching you in small moments alone, and nothing varied across your face. Even the child had barely phased you.

Even in his briefest daydream on the verge of consciousness, you showed some emotion, and he knew he wasn’t making that up out of nowhere. This stoic and stone-cold presentation of yourself… it wasn’t what you had always been. And he couldn’t even take credit for the entirety of it. He imagined it happened slowly over the years.

The first time he saw you, you had been smiling.

Not so much that this current version of you would be unrecognizable in comparison, you had by no means ever been particularly expressive, but you had smiled. A gentle upturn of the corners of your mouth, even flashing some of your teeth as laughter bubbled through you.

He had caught a glimpse of you out of the crowd in the booming marketplace that surrounded, modern and populous, a starch contrast to the planet where you currently resided. The second he caught sight of you, he was enraptured.

It had only been six or so years ago. You didn’t even look much younger in his memory than you currently did, you just wore it differently. The youth was radiant on you, as was the smile, the general brightness to you impossible to turn away from.

It was something he hadn’t seen in a long time, longer than the two years it had been since he last saw you.

The first time he saw you, he didn’t know who you were, and you didn’t know who he was. You remained two strangers passing in a marketplace and he convinced himself he was okay with that. He was in the middle of a job, he had no time to stop, he didn’t even know what he would say if he did.

That wasn’t what he did, getting caught up in a person, that wasn’t him. He had a job to complete, that was what he did.

He just didn’t know that you would be a part of the job.

He knew he wouldn’t be the only mercenary hired, not for a job like this. In the middle of the war, work was scarce if you didn’t pick a side, so if you wanted quiet work, it tended to have a criminal element to it. It bothered him, but not enough to turn down the paycheck. Clearly, you felt the same.

You sat off to the side, cleaning the intricate machinery to your rifle while the boss spoke, outlining the plan and everyone’s role in it.

He didn’t know what it was that drew him to you, he imagined that it was because you were the only one there who didn’t seem into the job for the criminal aspects of it. But he also couldn’t deny the way his heart had fluttered the first time he spotted you in the market, how warm your laugh had made him, even in viewing it from afar.

He nearly feared growing addicted to it if he experienced it first hand.

“Something I can help you with?”

Your accent was much stronger than it was now. Now, if he didn’t think about it, he would barely notice it, but back then, it had been more than noticeable, almost a hindrance to your basic. And he had no clue where it originated from.

Even now, that element of your past remained as much a mystery to him as his past remained to you. While you had been together, it was about the present and the occasional discussion of the future. Not the past.

He was a Mandalorian, he had been a foundling. That was all that had ever come up.

You were also orphaned young. That was the extent of what made it into discussion between the two of you even as the years passed.

So when the accent faded, he barely noticed.

But back then. The first time he heard it, it was all he noticed.

He spent so long focusing on it, he didn’t even realize you had been speaking to him.

He slowly shook his head when you looked back up at him from your rifle.

And then you chuckled. Not a scoff, there was no heat behind it. You seemed genuinely amused.

It was nearly infectious. He let the corners of his mouth turn up in a small smile, he couldn’t help it, thankfully he had the helmet to mask it. Otherwise he would’ve been lost in it.

Only now in remembering this was he realizing how young he had been. Or not young, but warm. He had been just as warm as you were and now, he imagined if he asked Cara or Karga, they would regard the current versions of the two of you much the same way. Quiet. Cold. Distant.

It was jarring to remember a time when it wasn’t like that, at least not to this extent.

“You do a lot of work with this crew?” You asked next, looking back up and noticing he was still staring.

He shook his head again and again you laughed. “You?”

You shrugged, closing the mechanisms within your rifle and turning your attention almost fully to him. “More than you, by the looks of it.”

“What do you mean?”

You stole a glance around as everyone prepared for the incursion, snapping on weaponry and armor, jesting with everyone else around, a criminal’s playground.

“They shoot people they catch staring.” You minded, “first the market, now here…”

He dropped his stare down and away. The lengthy tale of tallies kept along the butt of your rifle was enough of a testament to your skill and the last thing he wanted was to be out of line. He wanted to finish the job and get paid. So, he kept his stare away and stepped back, heeding your warning.

But you only let out another chuckle.

“I said ‘they’.” You smiled, it was small, but it was all he needed to catch with his stare to let him know it was okay to look. “I encourage it.”

He let his own chuckle fall from his lips and he nodded. “Noted.”

It was playful. You had been playful. He had been playful. He couldn’t pinpoint the exact moment it all changed, but he knew it was gone now.

With your rifle strapped over your back, you went to move past him but stopped, lingering in his personal space for a second as you turned back to him, taking a full languid scan of him from helmet to boot. You offered your name and he sighed.

“Mando is fine.”

You nodded and gave him one last pat on the shoulder before passing.

And it was only then that he remembered his heart returning to a normal rhythm.

The job went fine. He got paid. But a second before leaving, he ran back into you. Or maybe he had been looking, he didn’t think he could be faulted for that.

You were packing away your rifle and bag, each move of your wrist to fold a piece of fabric or to stack something within your sack, all of it, efficient and precise. As precise and methodical as you had been with the rifle.

He had a line of scorching through the paint on his shoulder plate to prove it. The shot had hit the target directly through the heart, but it came close enough to shake him. You did it twice more, perfect shots each and every time. He learned even within the span of minutes not to fear your shot when it got close, you were effortlessly perfect with your placement.

“Where are you headed now?” You asked, not even looking to him to know he was there, to know he was staring.

He stopped being spooked by it and just accepted that it was how you were. “Another job.”

“Not coming with us to Caamas?” You prompted over your shoulder, finally throwing him a glance.

He shook his head, taking a final step closer and holding your ground until you finished packing and turned all the way back to him.

“Shame, you’re pretty good.”

If he was good, you were incredible. The tallies suddenly made sense. You didn’t miss.

“Maybe I’ll see you around, it’s a pretty small galaxy out here for mercs.” You suggested, shrugging your bag up onto your shoulder, taking your rifle in the other hand.

“Maybe.”

When you pat him on the shoulder this time as you passed, you stopped briefly to get a better look at the scorch you inflicted with your close cutting blast. And when you stuck your thumb into your mouth and reached back to smear out some of the charring, he swore he nearly melted on the spot.

He couldn’t help but let his stare linger at your lips, at every single curve and scar along your face, which, back then, wasn’t that many.

Your lips. Perfect. Smooth and devilishly inviting. The memory now felt like a pang in his heart.

“Maybe.” You repeated. And like that, you were gone.

And he spent the four months until he saw you again replaying every interaction in his head whenever he could.

Just as he was now.

You finished with the fish and came back to the fire pit he sat next to and propped up two new spires of wood, a precise geometric configuration over the still crumbling wood that remained. And he watched every second of it.

His stare lingered at your lips. He couldn’t help it. The scar straight through the middle of your bottom lip contrasted so violently with the memory, it was all he could focus on as reality faded back to the forefront of his brain.

He knew you knew he was staring. You always knew.

He had applied bacta to many wounds of yours over the course of the years you knew and worked together following that first meeting, but not that one. He didn’t know when you got it, he didn’t know how you got it, you always refused to talk about it.

Now it just felt like another thing dangling between the two of you.

And he couldn’t pull his eyes off of it.

“Stop staring.” You remarked quietly, almost as if you had been speaking to yourself, barely loud enough for him to hear despite it being the only sound in the whole of the house.

I encourage it.

He knew the moment you began to hate him, another memory he couldn’t do away with. But he couldn’t pinpoint the exact moment you lost your playfulness.

There was a war. There were the tallies on your rifle. There was everything you two experienced together.

It happened somewhere along the way, gradually, as the two of you slowly grew into who you were now. He never really thought about it as it related to himself, but watching you, watching you use your remarkable skills of exactness and efficiency to do menial household labor, all he could do was wonder where the two of you would be had you never met one another.

If he had turned down that job or if he had accepted it and ignored you the way he ignored everyone else.

Would you still be so cold, or would you still allow a smile to grace your lips every so often? Would they still be without flaw, or was the scar inevitable?

Would you live here, a life condemned to solitude in an unforgiving jungle with nothing to occupy your skilled hands besides food preparation and domestic management? Or would you be back in a busy marketplace, enraptured in laughter, surrounded by mercenaries who appreciated you for what you were capable of?

If you never met him, you would never have been ruined by him. It was that simple. He just didn’t know how much of who you had become was his fault.

“You’re still staring…”

“Do you regret it?” It was strange, the tone his voice took. Foreign to both your ears and his own.

“Do I regret what?” You couldn’t stay still, even in conversation, you moved to organize whatever you could to take your mind off of him.

“Meeting me?”

A huff was all that came out.

“I’m serious.”

“You always are.” You finally broke back out with, brushing your hair from your face and turning back to him where he sat.

You watched him carefully, placing your hands on your hips and chewing at your bottom lip, scar and all.

He waited. He had nothing better to do.

“I don’t regret meeting you.” You finally sighed out, allowing your stare to meet his, trailing up the length of his form to get there, “I regret trusting you.”

You didn’t wait for a response, you only moved back to the kitchen and got back to work doing whatever you could, it didn’t matter what.

His stare didn’t follow. Not this time.


End file.
